


Blame

by RovingRomy



Category: Critical Role (Web Series)
Genre: F/M, Post-ep for the Raishan fight, written before episode 81
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-01-15
Updated: 2017-01-15
Packaged: 2018-09-17 18:35:40
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,389
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/9337808
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/RovingRomy/pseuds/RovingRomy
Summary: Instead of ranting about the way people were placing blame after episode 80, I wrote Vaxleth fic to express my thoughts.





	

Keyleth was silent, stoic even, as they entered Scanlan’s mansion, pulling her hand away when Vax reached for it.

It wasn’t as though they weren’t all quiet an upset. Raishan had gotten away with Thordak and the eggs. There was no way now to know where she was going or what she was planning. They’d beaten Thordak, but they very well may have lost a different game they hadn’t realized they were playing.

But Keyleth, however upset she was, didn’t usually refuse comfort. Not in such a harsh way.

Vax was worried.

His concern calmed just a bit when she followed him into his room rather than going to her own, but it flared up again when she remained silent as they removed their armor. When she turned her back to him after they climbed into bed, moving as close to edge, and as far away from him, as she could, her back stiff and rigid, Vax knew that something was very wrong.

“Kiki,” he said, placing a tentative, hesitant hand on her shoulder, his thumb running what he hopes was a comforting circle over her skin.

She went even more rigid, but didn’t pull away from him, which Vax took as an encouraging sign.

He wasn’t really sure what to say. He knew what she was doing, that she was in her head, blaming herself for everything that had happened.

Whatever she had or hadn’t done, nobody would ever be able to punish Keyleth more than she punished herself.

“You should be mad at me,” her quiet voice said after a long moment. “Your sister died. _Again_. Because of me.”

“She’s fine now,” he says. “And it wasn’t because of you.”

“Yes it was,” she responded, her voice low and monotone.

“No, it wasn’t,” he repeated forcefully, pulling on her shoulder to try to turn her over. She resisted, keeping her back to him, but he could see the side of her face, the way she squeezed her eyes closed tightly. “ _I’m_ the one who started things with Raishan.”

“Only because I told you to.”

“Keyleth, listen to me,” he said, his voice firm as he tried again to get her to face him. This time she let him turn her over, her eyes moving to focus at a spot over his shoulder. Her face was almost blank and emotionless, except for the way her brow was furrowed, the crease between her brows telling Vax that she was trying to hold back the emotion, to not show what she felt on her face.

“What else could have happened?” he continued, holding himself over her, propped on her elbow. His voice was firm, almost fierce, but his hand ran gentle, comforting touches up and down her arm. “There were only two ways this could have gone. Either we let her do exactly what she wanted, even though we weren’t sure exactly what that was, and let her go, or we had to fight her. It may have started because I did what you asked me to do, but it would have eventually led there anyway.”

Keyleth’s gaze shifts, finally looking at him, her focus moving to a point on his chest, still avoiding his eyes.

“You were right. You were always right. There was no way we could trust her. Even during the fight with Thordak, I’m sure that it wasn’t an accident when she hit me. Even if she didn’t have any plans to hurt us, and I think the fact that she hit me during the fight proves that she did, there was no way she had plans to do anything good.”

“But I wasn’t thinking about that,” she replied. “I was being selfish. I was thinking about getting revenge. I didn’t want her to get away because I didn’t want to lose my chance to kill her. That’s all I was thinking about.”

Vax sighed, his hand coming up to stroke her cheek. “That’s what I was thinking about, too.”

Finally, her eyes flicked up to his, her stoic facade breaking as tears filled her eyes.

“But that doesn’t change the fact that what happened would have happened anyway. We couldn’t just let her go. We couldn’t just let her do whatever she wanted with Thordak. It was always going to be a fight. If I didn’t start it, she would have. We were stupid not to plan for it.”

She nodded, biting her lip as a tear rolled down her cheek. Vax caught it with his thumb, wiping it away. “We’re all at fault here. Everyone of us. This isn’t just on you. We planned for Thordak but we didn’t stop to think about how we were going to handle Raishan once the fight was over. Having to do that was inevitable and we didn’t plan for it. We were all stupid. We should have had a plan.”

Keyleth closed her eyes as she nodded again, as though she were trying to commit Vax’s word to memory, to write them into her mind and make herself believe them. “This is on all of us. Not just you,” he repeated in a whisper, leaning down to press a kiss to her forehead.

“The others are still mad at me,” she said when he pullrd back, her hands coming up to clench in his shirt.

“They just need time. They’ll get over it.”

“What if they don’t?”

“They will. This isn’t the first time stupidity and poor planning got someone hurt or killed. Our family is too strong to be broken like that.”

As the final pieces of her stoic facade faded away, Keyleth started crying in earnest, tears running down her cheeks, heavy sobs escaping her throat. Vax lied down next to her, gathering her up in his arms and holding her close, whispering comforting words into her ear.

It took a long time for her to calm down, and his hold on her remained steadfast, warm and comforting. When her tears finally stopped flowing, he left a kiss on her forehead, turning onto his back so that she was tucked against his side, her head resting on the curve between his neck and shoulder. She turned her face into his neck, breathing in deeply, something Vax had learned she did for comfort. “You almost died,” she said, her voice quiet and sad.

“I’m fine,” he said lightly. “The way it sounds, you kept me from getting burned to a crisp.”

She was quiet for a long moment, her hold on him tightening. “I don’t want to lose you,” she finally said, her whisper so soft he can barely hear her.

“You won’t. I promise.”

“That’s not something you can promise.”

“It is. And I do.” Logically he knew she was right, he couldn’t promise that she wasn’t going to lose him. But there was something inside of him that just _knew_ now that she wouldn’t. It was a completely new feeling, so at odds with what he had felt before, that he was doomed to eventually die, sooner rather than later, but it was so strong, so overwhelming. A certainty that he’d never felt before. She wasn’t  going to lose him. He was going to be with her for a long, long time. They were going to finish her Aramente and return to Zephra, together. They _had_ to. They were going to.

Vax looked down at Keyleth, and he could tell she wasn’t as convinced as he was. “I’m sure of it,” he said, hearing the conviction in his words.

It seemed like Keyleth did, too, and her brow furrowed again, this time morphing her face into the expressing she made when she was trying to figure something out, her head cocking to the side slightly. After a long moment her expression smoothed out, not completely, but quite a bit, and she pressed a kiss to his jaw. “Okay.”

Her head returned to its spot against the curve of his shoulder, and soon he felt her breathing deepen and even out, puffing against his skin as she fell into sleep. Vax let out a long breath, hoping that his words were enough to keep her from blaming herself, from trying to shoulder all of the guilt herself.

He fell asleep, thinking of Keyleth and Zephra, and how he couldn’t wait to be there with her.


End file.
